Dirty Rowdy Thing (Wild Seasons, #2)(76)

His face relaxes and he gives a little shrug before taking a bite of his salad.

“And then he just left,” I tell him. “That’s why I’m angry. It felt . . .”

He swallows, and then finishes the sentence for me: “Shitty?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, you can tell him all about how you feel next week. We’re taking him out to lunch.” Sal meets my eyes and bats his lashes innocently.

Fuck.

“SERIOUSLY, ANSEL,” I say, slipping into the booth at Great Maple for Saturday breakfast with the crew. “How much are you paying to fly here practically every week?”

“A lot,” he admits with a laugh and his obscene dimple poking into his cheek. “But actually I’m here this weekend because we are house hunting.”

“Uh, pardon?” I ask, leaning forward to stare at Mia.

“Say what?” Lola adds.

“The lawsuit from hell settled this week!” Mia squeals, and she’s beaming so enormously I could count every single one of her teeth. “Ansel is officially free to look for jobs here and he already has an interview at UCSD!”

“Holy crap, that’s amazing!” I jump out of the booth and make Oliver get up so I can tackle Mia on the other side. “I am so happy for you guys!”

Lola joins the girl pile and I hear Ansel say something about getting a video camera and maple syrup.

I climb off the tangle and smack Ansel’s arm before straightening my shirt. “I can’t believe it. It’s like we’re all going to be together!”

“Well. Almost,” Lola says, making a this-is-awkward face.

“Right. Except for Finn,” I say, and everyone kind of looks over at me like I’m made of glued-together eggshells and am rolling toward the edge of the table. I laugh, too loudly, sounding completely mental. The effect is to make it even more awkward. “Obviously I realize he’s not here anymore.” And then I add for no reason other than my mouth is still moving and no one else is coming to my rescue: “He left without saying goodbye.”

Lola snorts, petting my shoulder. “Shh, crazypants.”

I bite back a laugh. “That came out a little Glenn Close, didn’t it?”

“A little,” Ansel agrees, laughing.

“I went and saw him last weekend,” Oliver says, and I swear the sound of screeching brakes tears through my head.

“You saw Finn?”

“Yeah. I flew up to see what the hell was going on with him since no one here told me anything.”

He gives me a pointed look, but then winks.

And see? This is what I mean by Oliver’s poker face. I’d never have known from his reaction nearly two weeks ago that he was so concerned over why Finn left that he would leave his new store in Not-Joe’s questionably capable hands and fly up to Canada just to check in.

I want to say something to show I’m not completely consumed with pain at the thought of someone else flying up and checking on Finn. And by the way they’re all looking at me, I can tell they expect me to make some quip and lighten the mood . . . but I can’t.

I’m done being mad. Trying to stay mad is exhausting, and I’ve never been good at it. I f*cking miss Finn, I miss My Person, and I can feel my jealousy that Oliver got to see him for a weekend climbing in a hot flush up my neck.

“You okay over there?” Lola asks gently.

“Not really,” I admit. “I have to go up there next week to look at boats with Sal and we’re taking Finn to lunch to thank him for coming on as a consultant. I already know it will be awkward and hard to see him because he’s so good at being distant and professional. This whole thing is making me sad.”

God, I hate how honest I get when I’m feeling devastated. It’s like I’ve been trained under some Pavlovian trigger by my parents to talk it all out as soon as I have feelings too big to stuff into a sarcasm cannoli.

“If it helps,” Oliver says, “he looked just like you do now when I told him you stopped by the house, looking for him the day he split town.”

“Did you tell him the part about how I was mad, or the part about how I was sad?” I ask. “Because I want him to imagine me with a chain saw and ass-kicking boots.”

Oliver laughs, shaking his head and returning to his waffle.

“Did he tell you why he was mad?”

“A bit,” Oliver says around a bite.

“So it’s at least a little bit of an overreaction, right?” I can hear in my own voice that not even I am convinced.

Ansel pokes at his breakfast and asks, “Did he ever tell you why he dropped out of college?”

“Yeah, briefly. I mean we never really talked about it, but I know he left to start fishing with the family business.”

“Not exactly,” he says, putting down his fork. “He dropped out to run the family business.”

“Wait,” I say, holding up my hand. “In college he did? I thought he took over after Bike and Build?”

“No,” Oliver says. “When he was nineteen his dad had the heart attack and then a stroke a year later. Colton was sixteen. Levi was like eleven? There was literally no other choice for Finn but to take over.”

“His father is better now,” Ansel continues. “But there’s a lot he still can’t do, and Finn has basically run the entire thing since he was a kid. He took the summer off one year for Bike and Build when Colton was old enough to give Finn a break, and he came to Vegas, but other than that, this trip to San Diego was his only time away from the water.”